Today Holland’s biggest newspaper, De Telegraaf, published an article about Toodou.com. I got lots of phone calls and emails today because of this, it’s amazing to see how many people read it. Traditional media still seem to rule, at least in Holland!

Also just got off the phone with a reporter from Dutch radio program Radio Online. This is a weekly program on Dutch Radio 1 about the internet and online activities. They plan to interview me on Tuesday in their program, but because the program is live and broadcasted at 8 PM I need to get up at 3 AM… The program is also available as podcast, will put a link here.

For the Dutch readers, this is today’s article:

In digitale tijdperk zetelt het nieuwe Hollywood in China

NEDERLANDER PIONIERT IN VIDEOPODCASTING VANUIT SJANGHAI

door ANNE MEIJDAM

SJANGHAI – Met Apples allernieuwste iPod kunnen voor het eerst video’s worden afgespeeld, maar wat de gebruiker allemaal op zijn scherm kan krijgen, is tot dusver nog niet erg duidelijk. Op een vijftal televisieseries na die alleen in Amerika kunnen worden gedownload, is de consument eigenlijk behoorlijk aan zichzelf overgeleverd. Voor de oplossing van dat probleem kijkt de hele wereld zoals gebruikelijk ook nu weer naar de VS, toch dé zetel van de internationale amusementsindustrie. Maar interessant genoeg zou een heel grote bijdrage nog wel eens geleverd kunnen worden door een land waarvan niemand dat verwacht: China.

Dat stelt Marc van der Chijs, een 32-jarige geboren en getogen Arnhemmer die met zijn bedrijf Toodou.com vanuit Sjanghai een wereldwijde voorsprong heeft in het zogeheten videopodcasting: de technologie die individuen in staat stelt zelfgeproduceerde muziek, foto’s en nu ook filmpjes op een website te parkeren.

Anderen kunnen via die website de producties weer downloaden en afspelen. Natuurlijk op computers, maar ook mp3-spelers, mobiele telefoons en op Apples beroemde iPod.

„De videovariant is zeker vergeleken met muziekpodcasting over de hele wereld nu nog het ondergeschoven kindje”, zegt Van der Chijs. „Maar met wat we hier bij Toodou voor elkaar hebben gekregen, daar kunnen ze in de rest van de wereld alleen nog maar van dromen.”

Toodou – wat aardappel betekent – bestaat pas sinds oktober vorig jaar, maar het beheert nu al zo’n 13.000 producten van Chinese makelij, waarvan er zo’n 5000 regelmatig worden vernieuwd. Een aantal dat zich zelfs per dag uitbreidt. Bijdragen variëren van onder andere een indrukwekkende korte documentaire over de problemen in de fabrieksstad Shenzhen, tot vrolijke kungfukluchten en zelfgemaakte muziekclips. Een kort filmpje van een meisje dat zich optuigt als Barbie werd niet minder dan 300.000 keer gedownload. Cijfers die alleen in het gigantische en computergekke China mogelijk zijn.

„Uiteindelijk willen we naar honderdduizenden kanalen toe”, aldus Van der Chijs. „Die moeten worden geproduceerd door gewone, maar wel heel creatieve mensen.” Die prognoses spreken natuurlijk ook zeker in Amerika tot de verbeelding. Een week geleden lagen de Toodou-servers geruime tijd plat door het plotseling toegenomen verkeer uit de Verenigde Staten. Dat was veroorzaakt door een enthousiast artikel van de bekende columnist Thomas Friedman over het Chinese internetbedrijf in de Amerikaanse krant The New York Times.

• De Chinezen zelf lijken al bijna verslaafd aan filmpjes op internet.
FOTO: REUTERS.

Toodou had tot voor heel kort niet meer dan zeven man fulltime personeel, de meeste medewerkers bleven gewoon in het piepkleine kantoor slapen. Maar na ondertekening van een overeenkomst deze maand met de Amerikaanse Venture Capitalist IDG (International Data Group), kunnen Van der Chijs en zijn partner Gary Wang nu op een stevige uitbreiding tot wel 22 man rekenen.

Een gloednieuw kantoor in een verbouwd pakhuis aan Sjanghai’s vermaarde Suzhoukreek wordt begin volgende maand betrokken. Over winstverwachtingen durft men bij veel internetbedrijven weliswaar nauwelijks te praten, maar de Nederlandse ondernemer lijkt zich daar zeker niet druk over te maken. Volgens hem zijn de commerciële mogelijkheden welhaast onuitputtelijk. Binnen afzienbare tijd zullen de Toodou-bezoekers een klein bedrag aan lidmaatschap voor het gebruik van de website moeten betalen, en verder tekende het bedrijf al een overeenkomst met een gsm-bedrijf voor het streamen van video’s naar mobiele telefoons.

Ook wordt er gedacht aan speciale tv-programma’s voor de meest populaire videopodcasts. „We worden welhaast dagelijks met zakenvoorstellen benaderd”, lacht Van der Chijs. „Naar aanleiding van dat artikel in The New York Times werden we ook al direct gebeld door Nokia in Finland. Wat we voor elkaar kunnen betekenen, was de vraag.”

Toodou sluit een snelle sprong naar het buitenland zeker niet uit, maar Van der Chijs verwacht dan wel een conflict met zijn investeerders. IDG wil dat het bedrijf zich eerst onwrikbaar in China nestelt voordat de rest van de wereld aan de beurt komt. „Daar moeten we snel over gaan beslissen”, zegt hij. „Om internationaal te kunnen opereren, heb je ook als Chinees internetbedrijf echter nauwelijks wat nodig. Een westerse interface en snelle servers in het buitenland. Buiten de Chinese internetfirewall.”

On Saturday morning the internet connection at home suddenly stopped working. So we called Shanghai Telecom, and we were told that they would look into it and call us back. Well, by midnight we still did not get a call back, so we decided to call again. They forgot about it, but they would check right away. According to them nothing was wrong, so it was our fault. Nice to know of course, but it did not help much. So I started checking our equipment and that revealed that our router, that we got from Shanghai Telecom, was not working anymore. So another call to them, where they told us that someone would come by before 12 the next day to change it.

At 8 AM Sunday morning our phone rang, Shanghai Telecom on the line. They told us there was a little problem, because it was not their router. Not their router? Yes, they told us, it was delivered by one of their agents, so it was the agents mistake and not their responsibility. My wife, who was talking to them, then got pretty angry. If Shanghai Telecom uses agents for their work, that is not our business. We do business with Shanghai Telecom and pay them the fees, so they should take the responsibility. A long and heated discussion followed, but in the end we only got one small step further. Shanghai Telecom would call their agent and they would contact us.

And luckily they did: One hour later a worker showed up, but after looking at the router he said it was not their router… Also he explained that he had no knowledge about routers. He made several phone calls with his boss, and it was decided to send another worker. So another hour goes by, and another guy shows up. Also he says that this is not their router, and maybe the employee who installed it last year had installed one that he had bought himself. This employee had left the company in the mean time, so they could not check. By that time we got tired of the whole thing, and decided to buy a new router ourselves (but together with the guy, to make sure we buy the right one). Luckily we live close to the biggest IT mall in Shanghai, so that only took 15 minutes. The worker installed it, and things worked fine again, after about 28 hours without internet. Next time I just buy a router myself and don’t even bother to contact Shanghai Telecom. I hope their monopoly will be over soon.

The Indian Times reports that export of fine Scotch whiskies has gone to an all-time high (source: China Digital Times). Why? Because Chinese mix it with green tea and ice cubes, and then drink it. This is not the only ‘strange’ drink you will see being poured in Chinese bars. Red wine is a good example: many Chinese do not really like it, but ordering an expensive bottle gives you face. So what do you do? You add some ice cubes to start with, and if it is still not drinkable you can poor some Coca-Cola or Sprite in as well. If you do it with a cheap bottle of wine, I don’t mind (in winter I also make gluehwein with RMB 30 bottles of Great Wall wine), but why buy a bottle that costs at least 10 times as much and then add other ingredients? It reminds me of business drinking sessions where I sometimes have to participate in which good bottles of wine are ordered and then you have to drink it ‘ganbei’ (ad fundum, without tasting it drinking the whole glass at once).

For the past weeks I have been training quite a lot for the Shanghai Marathon. Not easy to fit the training schedule into my busy work schedule, but I have managed with early morning and late-night runs. I feel much better now that I am back in good shape, and feel I can do a lot more work in the same time. And while running I always have many new ideas.

The race will take place on November 26, so still 5 weeks to practice. One of the biggest drawbacks of living in a city like Shanghai is that it is almost impossible to run outside. Therefore I mainly run on the treadmill in the gym. Boring, but a good way to practice running at a certain speed.

But because you cannot only train on a treadmill for an outside marathon, I decided to start running twice a week outdoor. Last Thursday was my first attempt, and it was not a huge success. The running itself went well, I just ran a relatively short distance (8 km) to get used to running on paved roads. But the moment I hit the streets I realized that it was not without danger. Cars do not expect runners, so you have to be constantly alert that they do not hit you. Bike riders are very surprised when you pass them (not that I run so fast, but bike riders normally ride very slow), and sometimes almost cause accidents because of that. But the worst is the people looking and pointing at you like a monkey in the zoo. I heard people scream ‘laowai’ at least 10 times during my 40 minute run! I ran to the Shanghai Stadium, and did some laps around the building, but even there it is busy. Cars trying to find a short cut from traffic jams, and a bus station and supermarket in the stadium do not help to create a safe running environment.

This weekend I returned to the treadmill again for my longer runs (Saturday a slow 16 km in 1 h 30 min, and today a faster 19 km in 1 h 30 min.), that’s a lot safer!

(BTW, picture was taken earlier this year on Koh Samui. For me, running on a quiet beach early in the morning is among the nicest things in the world. Too bad Shanghai has no beaches – yet)

I am not too afraid of bird flu, at least not in the current stage of the ‘outbreak’. The media are overreacting once again, it reminds me of what happened during SARS. The moment some humans get infected in Shanghai most foreigners will probably flee China again to ‘safer’ places. SARS was just a big blown-up media event, and I feel that is what happening to bird flu as well. As long as the virus does not mutate into a human-to-human virus I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Apparently the longer the virus only stays in birds the smaller the chance it will mutate into a dangerous virus: the virus gets weaker over time when it spreads. The reason: sick birds don’t fly far and dead birds don’t fly at all, so only a weaker version of the virus will likely spread.

On the Oriental-List (a mailing list mainly about travel in China) an American lady mentioned today that she was going to travel to Beijing for the first time, but had to promise her family not to eat Beijing Duck because of the danger. What are these people thinking? At least another member took the time to remind her that the ducks are cooked (actually roasted) very well so that there is no danger at all to get infected. And even if there is any danger, this is still much smaller than getting hit by a taxi or bus when crossing a street in China.

But how does the average Chinese see this? David, my partner at China Bay, asked his driver this question. The answer: “The government says that bird flu is under control, so I don’t worry about anything.” An interesting observation that people still put full trust in what the government is saying. On the one hand maybe scary, but what if this would not be the case? If Chinese would overreact to bird flu like Europeans and Americans to SARS and anthrax the country would soon be in total chaos. I am glad to live in China!

This morning I visited the Foxconn plant in Kunshan (Jiangsu province). This was a very interesting visit for me, as the plant is one of the biggest labour-intensive plants that I have visited in China. In total the Kunshan plant has a workforce of 38,000 people, which would be the equivalent of a small town in Holland. I went to the plant on a ‘educational trip’ with a group of China Bay clients, so we hired a small bus to drive there. Too bad that the bus also included a tour guide, who kept on talking. Problem is that most of his information was either stereotypes or was even completely wrong, and that got really on my nerves. The misinformation ranged from the Maglev train going 580 km/h (wrong, I think about 430 km/h), the former sign at the Huangpu park ‘not allowed for dogs and Chinese’ (this seems to be an urban legend, although Chinese indeed were not allowed in), to this one: “The difference between Shanghai and Beijing is that in Beijing all lights are turned off after 7 PM and it is completely dark’. Well, the tour guide was a proud Shanghainese, so I expected a little looking down on Beijing, but this just went too far. However, with the clients around I did not want to start arguing with the guide, so I just tried to block out his talk.

Foxconn is an amazing company, they have increased their revenues in 10 years from around 2 billion to 20 billion, and keep on growing between 30-60% per year. They spent huge amounts on innovation and R&D to keep ahead of the competition, and that seems to pay off. The total workforce worldwide is nearing 200,000 people. We asked the management how long the growth can continue like this. The answer: only the sky is the limit! In the plant we visited the production of cables (mostly automated) and then the assembly from the cables to connectors. The assembly is all done manually. Imagine a hall the size of a gymnasium full of long tables and chairs filled with 18-20 year old girls who connect cables for 8 hours a day (in 2-3 shifts). They are extremely well organized, with the color of the uniform showing the level and experience of the girls (there were also a few boys but not many – when we asked we were told girls had smaller fingers, so could perform better). Everyone has a description of her/his work hanging in front of the workspace to avoid mistakes.

Later we were also shown the assembly of notebooks (all the big brands), from the injection moulding, painting to the final assembly (also manually). The logistics involved in this are quite something. I forgot how many notebooks they produce, but it must be one every few seconds. We were shown around by the division head, a very friendly and talkative American Taiwanese. He answered every question we had, and seemed to know all the details by heart. When we left it was lunchtime, and large groups of employees walked in an orderly fashion to the cafeteria. They must have been drilled pretty good, because there was no pushing or screaming as is usual on Chinese streets. Actually, now I come to think of it, I wonder whether they were even talking to each other (must be, but it seemed all very quiet). In the factory itself the girls had to concentrate on their work and did not communicate with the others. Only the supervisors occasionally said something. Even though their jobs may seem pretty harsh and boring, most of them looked quite happy. Or maybe that was because a group of foreigners in dark suits was observing them?

This week McKinsey presented a study (China’s looming talent shortage) that concludes that the quality of China’s university graduates is not good enough to move from manufacturing into services. I do agree with them on this, and I think it mainly has to do with the education system focusing too much on memorizing instead of thinking about a subject. But that is not the main reason for this post. What I noticed on the article’s main page, is that the article can also be downloaded as a zip-file and then be converted to an mp3. A very interesting move. What will this hold for the future? Will all articles become available as audio-files so you can listen to them on your mp3-phone or iPod?

I do not understand why they decided to make a 12 MB zip file instead of going for an mp3-file directly. For spoken text you don’t need high-quality audio and mp3’s can be smaller than the 12 MB file they now have (the length is only 17 minutes). If they would go for the mp3 format directly they should take it one step further and also put an RSS feed on their site, so people can subscribe to audio files – and then it is suddenly called podcasting. But that seems too big a step too far for McKinsey at this point. A quick check of their site revealed that it does not even have one RSS feed on it. You can subscribe to news alerts by email… That is so old-fashioned. Anyway, at least they are going in the right direction by putting an audio file online. But still lots of room for improvement!

Yesterday I flew from Sanya to Shanghai, and on the flight I was reading the Shanghai Daily. It opened with an article saying that all travelers to Shanghai would have their shoes sterilized and that people would be checked for bringing poultry to the city. I was wondering what procedures would be in place at Hongqiao airport upon arrival. Would the SARS screening stations be in operation again? These were basically computers that measure the body temperature of each passenger and show the result in a color graph on a computer screen. Or would there be mats with liquid on it to clean your shoes (this was actually already in use on the domestic airport in Manila when we were there a month ago – it had a sign that it was to prevent the spreading of bird flu)? Or would your shoes be sprayed when leaving the plane? And would dogs be sniffing the luggage (this was shown on the picture on the front page, a dog walking over the luggage belt checking all the luggage for chicken and birds)?

Well, the answer is simple: none of it happened. There was no change from the regular procedures and nothing hinted at the implementation or future implementation of anti-bird flu measures. Big front page articles in the newspapers to keep the people assured that the authorities are doing everything to keep bird flu out of the city. But it is just words, not reality.